History of Winter Park United Methodist Church by W Breathitt Gray, Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a thorough job author Gray did assembling this book. I’ve read many histories that are longer by, so-called, professors and doctors that are not as well done as this book. The book is also well written.

The book lays out the development of the church by explaining how pioneers came to the area and the development that started of Winter Park and the churches by so many Methodists. It continues with very good listing of those who were responsible and what they did. Each chapter is broken up into time period and dates are used frequently to keep the reader buoyed in the sea of history presented.

Another great addition is at the end that explains what the well-known stain glass panels mean. Rarely is that kind of significant detail presented.

One item that would have been very helpful is a map with street names to help the reader be further oriented.

Bottom line: i recommend this book. 9 out of 10 points.

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You Can’t Get There from Here by Ogden Nash
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ogden Nash was so much fun with his verse! This collection is an excellent collection of a joy in verse mostly lost today. These are later works by Nash with wonderful illustrations by Maurice Sendak.

Favorites in this collection are: ‘The Pizza’, ‘A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor’, ‘And how Keen was the vision of Sir Launfal?’ and ‘How to Marry a Husband’.

Bottom line: i recommend this book: 10 out of 10 points.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Hashimoto by Jack Douglas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the first time, I’m reading the Douglas collection in order. From this effort, I’m learning how weak Douglas’ first efforts were. With this book Douglas hist the stride he’ll maintain to his last book.

This book is basically a travel narrative. Not with the flow of Perelman’s ‘Westward, Ha!’, but more a collection of anecdotes as the Douglas family travels from California to Japan and stops along the way. The anecdotes are very good and funny. Moreover, unlike the often odd entries in the Douglas previous books, this is well written and planned out. With a HUGE exception.

The book moves from one spot to another as Douglas experiences life in the Pacific islands and their son, Bobby. Suddenly the book ends with them wrapping up with the family still in Japan. I’m sure there is a good reason for this on the publication side. but for the reader, it’s like us also being abandoned in Japan.

By the way, the cover art is by the great Roy Doty, who was also a friend of mine.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of ten points.

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Alias the Saint by Leslie Charteris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The edition I have has only two stories mentioned.

‘The National Debt’: A bit over done and confusing at times as The Saint character, using an alias is suspected and accepted at the same time by a gang of bad guys. That makes little sense. Also the coercion of a scientist seems also far fetched. it all ends as such stories do, but I felt very unsatisfactory in the end.

‘The Man Who could Not Die’: This is a nifty short tale that is also confusing as the story has various flashbacks and the editing makes where those start and stop not clear. It all seemed obvious to me. As did the conclusion.

Bottom line: i don’t recommend the book. 4 out of ten points.

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The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I do like du Maurier’s writing a lot. This book is very well written. It’s the plot and layout of the story that is not well thought out.

This book starts out with someone coming across someone they that looks familiar and some thing more occurs. Lo and behold, that familiar one turns up dead. The someone who saw the familiar now seems to remember who the dead one was and goes off to find out what happened. The someone is a tour guide, not a detective, but du Maurier wants to show off her knowledge of the scenes of Italy again. The device is a bit much. Moreover, it all tipped me off who did what and why and who was wh’s mother. It was all obvious to me. That really kills a book for me.

Her writing makes up for some of that. But this could have been more tightly written and cut away a lot of trivial stuff that helped me know along the way my conclusion had to be correct.

A weak mystery in a heavily written book.

Bottom line I recommend the book: 6 out of 10 points.

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Quest of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

I figure if I keep reading through the series a gem will appear. It’s not a Grade A gem, but far, far superior to the last 7 books or so.

The tale is a curious one. Why would a mountain man, who is always bemoaning the onslaught of the easterners and financially set for life, wander off to Canada to help a railroad scout it’s right-of-way for a rail line? A flimsy answer is given that is more of a devise to justify the reason for the book. Especially since there is very little scouting recorded in the book itself.

What sets this book apart from others in the series are a set of layers that makes the book more interesting and depth. No real surprises, but a good story nonetheless.

Bottom line: I recommend this book: 6 out of 10 points.

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Trek of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

The story here is a rather trivial one for the Johnstone library. Odd, actually, considering the books just previous. Smoke Jensen’s wife is kidnapped and, in what other books might have taken a chapter or two, an entire book is needed to get her back. It’s not complicated. Nothing surprising. The Kidnap Sally story has been used before. In fact, I was sure I had read this before. Maybe there was more regurgitated than chapters of former books. I haven’t had time to cross this book with the 24 previous or the gobs of other books that Johnstone had put out by this time.

The writing is fine. The characters always good. The settings lacking.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 3 out of 10 points.

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* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

Warpath of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This story, as with one two books back sure seems familiar, but, again, I don’t have time to research through my Mountain Man and other Johnstone books to figure out where i read it before. I know I have. I knew what was going to happen to who and the ending. This harkens back to the multitude of flashbacks and just what was going on in the Johnstone Clan camp at the time.

Two things are mostly missing from this book: Treeing a town and flashbacks. Something that the series has beaten to death.

The story is not a complicated one and there are few surprises. The characters are less than typical Johnstone characters. The settings being less described is now the norm in this part of the series.

Based on this seeming to be a repeated story and other parts lesser than average…

Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 4 out of ten points.

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* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

Justice of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unlike the last few disasters of Mountain Man tails, ‘Justice of the Mountain Man’ is on a better track. The story is a very good one and tightly written. Again, there are needless flashbacks when the story could be fleshed out a bit more, not that it was needed. This is a great story, well written and worth reading….without flashbacks.

Entirely unlike the previous entry in the series, ‘Heart of the Mountain Man’, this is not like an excerpt from a previous novel. It has one of the more involved plots of the series to this point. Unlike most of the series, which usually involved Smoke stopping someone from “treeing” a town, this book seems to be going the easy route problems changes the trajectory of the story and the characters many times. It’s one of the few in the series where you won’t know how the story unfolds and ends within 20 pages.

Complaints again, as with the last few Mountain Man books are needless flashbacks, though the fewest of the last books, the title and the cover. The characters are many and well done, though are very similar to many other characters written in the ersies. The settings are lacking again, but better than other recent books.

Bottom line: I recommend this book: 6 out of 10 points.

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Heart of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

The book that preceded this one, ‘Guns of the Mountain Man, was just terrible. A bulk of the book were pages and pages of previous books framed as a flashback. Here the formula continues to a lesser extent.

I don’t know what was happening in the Johnstone Clan stable at the time of the publication of this book. Was Johnstone fighting illness now and unfinished books were filled with other content to beef them up? Was Johnstone thinking such reflection necessary? But why at 25 books into the series such a dramatic change of course? There had been reflection in past books occasionally, but not at the rate of ‘Guns’ and then this one, ‘Heart of the Mountain Man’.

Instead of Smoke’s wife being kidnapped, this time it’s the sheriff’s with not unexpected results ensuing. One plus is references to various characters that populate the town and area usually not mentioned much after their initial appearance. The writing is fine. The characters always good. The settings lacking.

The title stinks and cover art useless. I get the tradition of the one word followed by ‘of the Mountain Man’, but I’m dumbfounded why better words are hardly ever used at this point. That and just any ol’ tin type form hundred plus years ago is tacked on the cover. I know this changes later, but, unfortunately not much for the better.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of 10 points.

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* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

Guns of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I don’t know what was happening within the Johnstone Clan stables in the late ’90s, when this book was published. Perhaps they were grappling with the few series of books they were chugging out at the time or this is when William Johnstone began getting ill, ultimately leading to his death in 2003. Whatever was occurring, this book should never have seen the light of day. As with Mountain Man books just previous to this one, the book stinks.

The worse of this book is re-re-re-re-revisiting the story of Smoke stopping the “tree”ing of a town. As the Johnstone Clan has proven later in the 2000s, as the Johnstone seemingly-nearly-endless series began, there are a ton of other stories to create beyond the treeing of a town. Again, i believe something was going wrong at the time with the Johnstones and these books were pumped out to fulfill contracts.

Next worse, is the horrible & lazy act of filling about 3/7ths of the book with content of other books. As a writer myself, I know it would be easier to write in fluffy filler, than researching sections of older books and cut and paste into the newer. I believe this gets back to problems in the Johnstone stable where multiple people were assembling these books and adding earlier sections of books to fluff out a short story written by someone else, all the while fighting deadlines for their contracts. I’d hate to think the filler was intentional. Filler cheats the reader and is wrong.

Next is the story. No surprises. Nothing new. In fact, an old location is used and a shorter version of the original story with the location is presented. More cheating the reader.

Characters are very good, as, I believe, is the hallmark of the Johnstone Clan series. A huge boo-boo is made involving one main character who’s dialogue is written one way in the actually story, but written differently in section cut in from another book.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.

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